Stop Acting!

I was working on a play once with a cast that included a recent graduate from some acting program somewhere, and one day the director told him: 'You've had 125 hours of acting class and we're seeing every one of them up on that stage! Stop! Acting!'

That is some sage advise if you ask me. And it came to mind as we're rehearsing 'Like a Sack of Potatoes'. It's a strong piece, one of my strongest, and sometimes, when the writer isn't watching, the actor really wants to invest all the feeling and experience and know-how into getting the points across . . . and it just doesn't work. Then my wonderful, insightful and painfully honest director (also wife: Bette) calls me on it.

Moments that are powerful tend to be more so without unneeded actorly punctuation. Of course, the advise to the players in Hamlet springs to mind as I write this . . . it's really all you need to know about acting. Well that and how to peel back the layers that we all resist peeling to really get at the truth and power and depth of a character.

Of course, study is important . . . how else to learn timing, vocal control and movement; how else to exorcise those bad habits . . . but once you are on that stage, everything you know and have done leading up to that moment is behind you . . . all you have is now . . . and now is better if it's emotionally honest and truthful, not some facade you construct with a big all caps WATCH ME ACT on your forehead.

Part of the problem with pieces that are text heavy (a solo piece perhaps?) is that you learn the lines and run them and run them and run them just to get from the beginning to the end without screwing up . . . and then when you start to rehearse some of the bad habits you've developed in running the lines seep into performance. Once you're working on the moment to moment stuff . . . well that's when the magic starts to happen and the discoveries. It's an incredible process.

Anyway . . .

Simple is better.

Makes it sound easy but it's not.

Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere from George Burns (I paraphrase): The hardest part about acting is honesty. If you can fake that you got it made.